Any recollection of what the obscure ones you had were?

I don’t know how many varieties are really an option from the grocery store. Farmers markets are probably better but I didn’t realize how many options there were or how different they can be till I started growing them. Definitely recommend slicer varieties for sandwiches but honestly they have been my favorite for everything.

I recently bought some msg. Tasting it by itself reminds me of tomatoes - like a tomato with no sugar and no juice. Haven’t really used it at all yet but based on that I might try mixing it with mayo or even just sprinkling it on a sandwich (with or without tomato on it).

Anecdotal evidence is evidence though. And I think the point of the above post is valid, commercial food service should be held to the strictest guidelines to eliminate as much risk as possible. At home, for myself, I’m not going to worry about it beyond basic common sense and trusting my own senses. I also think it is good to be aware of guidelines and generally exercise caution.

All that said, I am always forgetting to put food away and eat it for lunch the next day anyway - have never had a problem in decades (vegetarian).

Busted lol

Here is one I took using our hands to create the effect.

It’s not just superheroes. There are so many movies that boil down to whoever punches harder wins and it’s always the good guy. I find myself asking, *is this a punching movie" quite a lot. They all try and spin it to be about family or overcoming the odds or even try to blur the line between good and evil. Unfortunately in the end the protagonist punches harder and the story ends, “zzzzz”.

For now get something better than a cardboard box for your tools, something you can carry all the basics around with. A bucket works, a bucket with a handyman belt on it (they sell these for buckets) works well enough. When you run out of space just know that no matter what you upgrade to you will run out of space again. Start small and upgrade as needed.

A homeowner handyperson help and discussion space would be great.

Know what needs filters or other consumables now - get and read the manuals. No one does all the ‘required’ maintenance but you should be making an informed choice to ignore them. Example, my water heater recommends a full flush every 6 months to prevent scale buildup - lol yeah right. Add up all these kinds of tasks and say goodbye to any free time you have. BUT now I know and if I am doing some other maintenance or have the water/power off for some other reason then maybe I’ll tack on a flush of my water heater while I’m at it.

I hope you have fire extinguishers and a plunger. I get your point and generally agree but with homeownership some amount of over preparedness grants peace of mind.

Edit: Waiting until you need something also eliminates the option of research and buying used. A lot of really good tools can be found for very cheap but if you wait till you need it your only option will be whatever the big box store has in stock today. I recently got stuck with a cheap chainsaw and while it has done everything I needed it to I could have bought a much better one for probably less money AND not given money to the hardware store if I’d have done it in advance.

I mentioned this elsewhere in the thread but I use a dedicated email for the house for this. It is worth doing - use the format that works but do it. I do like emailing this stuff to myself so that I can can access the paint color while I am at the hardware store when I inevitably forget to check that before I leave the house lol. And I just use it to communicate with contractors so I get all the notes and invoices saved at the same time. Anyway, not trying to debate the method as that matters WAY less than the idea of keeping track of this stuff.

OH, and one more thing I track - take photos anytime you have a wall open or a trench dug or whatever. Later if you need to come back to it you will know exactly what is behind the wall and where which will make it much easier to do whatever new things you are doing. This feels silly sometimes, surely I’ll remember where I ran that wire, but the next time you need to get behind the wall could be 10 or 20 years from now.

Create an email address for the house and use it for everything house related. Contractors, mtg payments, instruction/owner’s manuals for appliances, etc, all get sent here and it’s very helpful. Also suggest doing a first look for manuals now. When you need to fix your water heater - even if you opt to pay a contractor - having read the manual first will put put you in a much better position to understand what needs to be done or what you are choosing to pay for.

Tool wise I’d include a couple pipe wrenches plus a 90° angle one for under sinks. The actual ones are probably less useful for plumbing inside the house but are just useful tools. A pickaxe is useful for small irrigation or electrical trenches. A pry bar for - you’ll find a use. Someone else mentioned a hand truck which is really handy. Basic electrical tools, lineman plyers, wire strippers, an electrical tester. Some basic chemicals, acetone, alcohol, bleach, etc will come in handy for cleaning/prepping (don’t store acids around tools/metal unless you put them in an airtight container as an acidic pH in the air causes rust). Other basic consumables are good too - a tube of caulk, electrical tape, couple boxes of screws and nails, plumbing tape, a small tube of epoxy, I tend to buy an extra of these kinds of things as I see them so that I have them when I need them. Once you have all this and other basic tools it’s awesome to have a project and be able to do it without needing to go to the hardware store.

Not something you can just go buy but I keep an eye out for jars and drawers of junk at yardsales and thrift stores. Have bought a couple of little Grey boxes with the 30 tiny drawers full of odds and ends someone else collected - super handy. All kinds of oddball stuff, hinges, springs, rubber gaskets, cotter pins, that have saved me many trips to the store.

Outdoor bug lights - yellow bulbs that don’t attract bugs. Not sure why I’d never heard of these but they make the patio more enjoyable. Not gonna keep bugs away but at least there isn’t a swarm of them.

Good luck!

Seriously, the number of articles with wild headlines and text that describes a video or picture - WITHOUT SAID VIDEO OR PICTURE - is too damn high. Really the number of “news stories” that are just this is too damn high to say nothing of the fact that anything actually useful or critical just isn’t going to make the news in favor of whatever corporate BS they are shilling.

I mostly opted out a long time ago and while I’m often out of the loop on lots of things I generally can’t avoid hearing big news and have more room for other things that I actually care about.

Agree. Stranger than fiction is my exception. Edit: Actually read the post. Op has good taste.

I think this is well intentioned but generally bad advice when stated so definitively. Brush your teeth. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good though and do what you need to do to brush your teeth. Know that it may be better to do it a while after eating but don’t let timing prevent you from doing it.

I say this as someone who was told this and the overall result was bad.

Did you get the same things or different combos of foams? I like the idea of mixing and matching till I get what I want.

Why three mattresses? Wear or for other rooms or something?

This is really interesting. A few years ago I bought this American Chestnut salt and pepper set. The guy who made it did tell me that he got the wood from a beam out of a barn built before the Civil War but I didn’t realize why. I just thought it was a really good looking salt Shaker and pepper grinder…